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jmb275 – I agree that is sounds like evolution. So? 
Old-Timer wrote:jmb275 – I agree that is sounds like evolution. So?
Indeed, I wasn’t arguing, just noticing. Hey, if the ideas espoused in Mormonism are superior biologically, then evolution will sort it out. I definitely see evolutionary benefits as benefits. Great insight on Darwin’s part!Heber13 wrote:I appreciate the sincere post. I hope I can convey my thoughts in the proper tone, not judgemental and not holier-than-thou…simply as my thoughts, FWIW.
One of my favorite talks is from Elder Haight called “People to People”, Nov Ensign 1981. My focus in the church has alwasy been on the people, and love for people, and not on the letter of the law. If the church isn’t about bringing people to Christ, it is of no value to the human race. Elder Haight shared a story that stays with me always. I don’t know if you feel it applies to the conversation at hand, but it stuck me as such. He said,
Quote:Driving to the Los Angeles Airport with a busy radio executive, I learned that he and his wife, though born in the Church, had never participated. Their social life of parties and weekends for fun and escape dominated their lives.
After eight years of marriage and three children, they were becoming concerned about their lives but did nothing about it.
Different sets of home teachers came and went. A new home teacher—a true shepherd—came into their lives, and after a time this new home teacher committed this man to go to Church once. Brother Adamson said he would not give up smoking and drinking. He had made a firm resolve not to live the Word of Wisdom, and if he was not welcome in Church because of it, that was fine. The home teacher said, “You are welcome, and I will pick you up.”
The first Sunday Brother Adamson attended Church he waited for someone to move away from him because of the strong tobacco odor, but that didn’t happen. “They will ask me to pray or work in the Church,” he thought. That didn’t happen either.
The home teacher did not phone on Sunday mornings to give him a chance to make an excuse and back out but drove to his home and would say, “Are you ready?” This home teacher picked him up every Sunday for over a year.
The Adamsons began reading A Marvelous Work and a Wonder and found that the Church consisted of much more than just the Word of Wisdom, which he had heard so much about all his life (and because he didn’t live the Word of Wisdom, felt the Church had nothing to offer him).
This couple soon learned it is a Church of love, not a Church of fear. They learned of the mission of the Savior and of our Heavenly Father and of repentance. They became so proud of the Church they had been born into that the Word of Wisdom no longer was an important issue. He didn’t go through the pangs of quitting. It just happened. There were so many other principles of the gospel that now were so important in their lives.
He said, “I found myself working on our new chapel and then one day quietly telling the bishop, ‘I’m ready, now. You can call on me to pray.’ ”
Perhaps this is ideal, perhaps we don’t see this enough in the church, but I strongly believe this is the view I would like to hope for in the church. Any member wanting to come join the congregation and sincerely seek Christ and feast on His words should be welcome. Hopefully as people come and feel welcome, there is a desire to sacrafice and seek to live laws that can lift us from this world to a better, happier place. Line upon line, precept upon precept…not all at once or run faster than is needful.
A smoker who loves Christ and loves my family is welcome to home teach me in the church over a zealot who calls me to repentance.
It should be a gospel of love, not of fear. That is my hope, and I’m saddened too often I cannot see it in our church.
To bring it back to the topic…I believe from my understanding of days I did interviews, it is a requirement to ask if the person is willing to try to live the laws established to be baptized, but an understanding we all sin which is why we need Christ to help us if we can’t live it. And more importantly, requirements for baptism or the temple DO NOT EQUATE TO ANY REQUIREMENT TO JOIN THE CONGREGATION AND ATTEND CHURCH, WHERE ALL SHOULD BE WELCOMED IN LOVE. (not shouting that last part, just emphasis.)
I LOVE THIS!!! I am shouting this
To go and feel welcome again.
I would also like to add, I think it would be fair that those wanting to come to church seek to bring the same spirit of love and acceptance.
Are mormons perfect or better than non-mormons? No. So why should they be held to a higher standard? Maybe they have truths that should help them be more Christ-like, but they are all struggling to figure it out and live it too. Knowing something and knowing how to live it are 2 different things.
I bring this up because my brother-in-law was excommunicated. Came back to church to see his son give a talk one Sunday. Sat in the back wearing jeans and unshaved. After the sacrament meeting, several members went back to say hi to him. Afterwards, he said how fake people were and how much they judged him.
I was blown away at how little effort he made to be nice to anyone, yet was so critical of the mormons he didn’t trust who were making an effort to walk all the way back to him to say hi, when he made no effort back, and in fact just judged them for it.
My point is that sometimes it seems mormons are expected to be held to a higher standard, and I wonder why, unless that is an admission from all their critics that they really do have the truth, so they should be better people than they are.
I think we need to go to church with the same loving and accepting attitude. Even if a narrow-minded mormon says or does something stupid that might offend me, it is still my responsibility to love and accept them, not put all the pressure on them to make us feel loved and welcome.
If that is the kind of feeling I want to have when I go to church, then I’m a part of this church and should help make it that way. Just a thought.
Heber13 wrote:My point is that sometimes it seems mormons are expected to be held to a higher standard, and I wonder why, unless that is an admission from all their critics that they really do have the truth, so they should be better people than they are.
There is something about hypocrisy that gets humans really riled up and makes them irrational. I imagine that was your reaction to your BIL’s reaction which was the same: he felt hypocrisy (maybe people came up to him and said hi when he was at church but what about all the times no one reached out to him when he wasn’t at church, just a hypothesis)
My point is that Mormons are held to a higher standard because they judge the world from a higher standard. People are going to naturally sense the hypocrisy and react. If mormons adopted the “live and let live” standard, they would be held to that instead. But proselyting, Prop 8, Utah’s GOP stranglehold, etc. projects the image of “we know better than you” and thus the higher standard/hypocrisy cycle begins.
swimordie wrote:My point is that Mormons are held to a higher standard because they judge the world from a higher standard.
Yes, good point. That is definitely a fair take on it.
Its wierd, the people did reach out to him some before he came to church, I think thy felt like they should and invite him back and let him know he’s missed, but it is like they do it because they feel they should…I’m not sure if they even know it doesn’t come across as sincere. Maybe it seems fake when people who didn’t talk to you much before all of sudden want to be super nice to you, and it just doesn’t feel right or sincere cause you don’t trust them or something. But they mean well. I don’t know.
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